I wanted to show you a new site that has just come up. It is called Deja View and is written by Andreas Deja, a animator who has worked at Disney for thirty years. Andreas was the lead animator for characters such as Jafar from Aladdin (1992), Scar from The Lion King (1994), and Lilo from Lilo and Stitch (2002). He has also spent his whole professional career collecting old animation, particularly from the legendary Nine Old Men.

The Nine Old Men are nine animators who were responsible for bringing many of the Disney characters, from the late 1930’s to the beginning of the 1980’s, to life. The Nine Old Men are some of the greatest influences for the medium of animation and are responsible for creating many of the foundations most animators these days stand on. All the Nine Old Men have passed away, the last being Ollie Johnson in 2008. Luckily many of the Nine Old Men were mentors to Andreas. I know he stayed friends with Ollie Johnson, Frank Thomas, and Eric Larson to the end of their lives. So far his blog seems to be devoted to talking about these great animators.

I recommended the blog to anyone looking to go into animation. Unlike historians who talk about these great men from mostly an outsiders perspective, Deja has personal experience with many of these people and the ability to express who these animators were from a animators perspective. Deja is a animation legend himself. He was a key figure in the rise of Disney animation in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s. Deja is also a huge advocate for keeping 2D animation alive, rather then having all studios converting completely to CG animation. Deja was known for his ability to animate the villain. He was the lead in bringing to life characters like Gaston, Scar, and Jafar. Yet he showed himself a good lead animator for the hero as well with characters such as Lilo, Mama Odie from Princess and the Frog, and just recently Tigger in the new Winnie the Pooh movie coming out this July.

If you want to hear from Andreas I would recommend you listen to these podcasts from The Animation Podcast: part 1, part 2, and part 3. I am sure you will find Andreas’ story on how he became an animator inspiring and he gives great insight on the medium of animation at Disney in 2005, when this interview was taken.

Without any further to do I give you the Link to Andreas site Deja View:

Live Action is the most common film medium in film business. In this day in age almost anyone with ambition can make a good quality film. The tools used to make film is getting more and more affordable, the knowledge in what is needed to make a good quality film is becoming more and more accessible.

With live action you are allowed many different takes from many different angles on any given scene. Unlike both 2D and CG animation, it does not take a vast amount of time to do just one second of motion. Everything is done in real time on the spot, which allows the actor to explore different ways to execute his or her performance. All the angles and shots are not planed out in pre-production. On the spot inspiration is a huge bonus for live action film. You are allowed to see all the things around you and enhance your performance through those things.

The director of the film is allowed to see the big picture more clearly. With 2D and CG animation you are given curtain aspects of any given scene individually. You go to one department to look at the acting in a shot and then go to entirely different department to see the landscapes and lighting for a shot. With Live action you are allowed to see everything at the same time, the performance, the setting, the lighting, and so on. The time it takes to do a live action film compared to a CG or a 2D film, is often cut in half. You are allowed to see the big picture much more quickly and it is not nearly as hard to make changes with live action as it is for animation.

One great aspect of live action is the individual performances that you are allowed to clearly see on screen. In both types of animation mediums you can not possibly create a main characters individual performance by yourself. It takes many people working together to act out a character such as Woody from Pixar’s Toy Story or Beast from Disney’s Beauty and the Beast. In live action one person often carries out the entire performance of a character, because of this the public often create “stars” from actors that have accomplished great performance after great performance, such as Tom Hanks or Julia Roberts. More weight is often put on one performer to make or break a movie.

With live action film, chemistry between actors is key. Each actor uses the things and people around him or her to enhance his or her performance. There is a famous saying about acting, “acting is reacting”, and there is no better medium to see this applied in then live action. The immediate reaction an actor can get in live action, can not be completely copied in any other medium of film. The performance is entirely built on the interaction with the surroundings around you. Steven Spielberg talked about trying not to have much of a rehearsal time with his actors because he wanted his actors to give a sort of “in the moment” performance. There is a such thing as over working a routine where the natural flaws of an action disappear and the performance looks a little too mechanical. Usually a good actor has a good idea on what he or she would like to accomplish in a scene and an idea on how he or she is planning on going about executing his or her performance. However, all this planning can not be set in stone for it will change based on who you are acting with. An actor is only as good as the person he or she is performing with.

Post-production is a very important part in live action film. With animation you have a very clear idea on how you are going to cut the picture before any final footage comes to the table. However, with live action film you are allowed to be a little more loose with cutting, you have the ability to shoot many different takes from many different angles. Because it is so easy to shoot the film, you are allowed more options when the footage gets to the cutting room floor. It is the editor that has control of an actors performance. Although the actor has done his own characters performance, there is a vast amount of footage of the performance to choose from. If a actor is on screen for 20 minutes all together in the final film, it is likely that there has been several hundred hours of footage shot of the actor. In these hundreds of hours, there no doubt has been some bad takes where the performance was not to it’s highest degree. Thus, the performance is often based on the good judgment of the director and editor.

Live action film is a medium that has flourished for more then a century. From the silent days where a actor with a false mustache made us laugh through his vast skill in physical humor to modern days where actors like Tom Hanks and Russel Crowe have shown us how life like and impacting a performance can be. An actor is allowed to be put in a position where they do not need to imagine anymore, where the costumes, props, and sets truly feel real. Live Action film is a medium that will last through the ages, because it shows us a reality that no other medium can.

(This is a scene where I think the surrounding had a vital impact on the performance. Because everything was right in front the actor Liam Neeson, he was able to create a performance that touches the core of my heart. My hope is that animation will one day be able to do the same)

Computer Graphics (CG) animation is a limitless medium for film making. I think CG animation relies more on teamwork then any other medium of film. There are two very different aspects to CG animation, there is the artistic side of and the mathematical side. Great CG animation is the result of the artistic and mathematical sides working together for the purpose of the story.

With CG animation you have more freedom to use lighting, camera, texture, and effects to enhance the story. The more the technology of CG animation develops the more freedom you have to tell the story you want to tell. John Lasseter (president of Disney and Pixar animation) said it this way when talking about CG animation, “The art challenges technology and the technology inspires the art”. With a good CG animation studio every project is a opportunity to do more sophisticated and detailed animation.

It is usually the simple things that cause the most problems in CG animation. For instance, a character touching another character is very difficult. Trying to render long hair poses problems, making something look transparent often creates many difficulties, and creating realistic clothing that interacts with the body and the world around it creates many problem that all take many highly trained people working hundreds of hours to fix.

Unlike a 2D animator, a CG animator starts with something on the screen. The model has been created and the controls set by the time it gets to the animator. Every small detail can be controlled by the animator, you often have hundreds of individual controls for the face of a character alone. Before a animator starts on a character it is like a empty shell, lifeless with nothing expressing who the character is except for the basic outside look (as you can see on the left with the character Mike from Pixar’s Monsters Inc).

It is the animator who breaths life into the model. The principles of animating in 2D very much apply in CG animation. You have to have a thorough understanding of anatomy and acting. Pacing, overlapping, and squash and stretch are all principles that are shared between 2D and CG animation.

CG animation can lone itself to subtle action better then traditional 2D animation. You are able to read little things like the movement of the eyes and see how it expresses the characters feelings. With CG animation you have a better ability to create texture so we can tell the difference between something like leather and silk. 2D animation tries to simplify things to their basic shapes, the animator needs to be able to express his or her character through only a few lines and colors. CG animation is not limited like 2D animation, it is allowed to be as detailed as it wants. However, in animated films of all kind you often see that things have been simplified. The artists want you to pay attention to the important parts and they are allowed to throw away the unneeded detail.

It takes many people to finish just one shot in CG animation. You certainly need to have a combination of talent who are able to work well with each other. It all starts with the story and group of artist who create a storyboard showing the key points of the scene. Then there are the people who create the model, the people who create the background, the animator, the lighting artist, the people who are in charge of the cloths on the character, the people who write a program for the elements like water and dust, the shading artist, the editor, and then there is the director who has the vision of the whole film. The director needs make sure everything blends into and works with each other so it looks like one artist created the whole story.

Click image to see step process

The picture of Carl from Pixar’s Up, is a great example of just a few of the things that go into making one frame of animation come to life. CG animation truly is the combination of math and art creating life on screen. Creating a program that simulates a simple thing like water is a very difficult task that has taken hundreds talented of workers many years to perfect.

There is so much that we can do in CG animation that was considered impossible just a few years ago. If you look at Pixar’s Toy Story franchise you will find that the original Toy Story (1995) is extremely primitive compared to Toy Story 3 (2010) technology wise. The extent of detail that can go into lighting and movement is so much greater then 1995 when the first Toy Story movie was made. However, what makes CG animation great is the thing that makes both of the other mediums great. You need to have a story worth telling.

With CG animation you need to have a good story in order to make a good movie. There are stories that very much lends themselves to CG animation. A good example would be Pixar’s UP which was about a old man who chose to go on a grand adventure by tying thousands of balloons to his house and flying away. In a live action film a audience would most likely not buy into the idea of a house flying away on balloons. With 2D animation you would not be able to create as believable of imagery through texture, lighting, and the ability to move the camera. UP was a story that seemed perfect for CG animation. You were allowed the freedom to let go of what was reality and buy into the feeling of reality. UP created it’s own laws and stayed true to them, we were introduced to characters that registered with us and felt real.

We see artists trying to walk a fine line between the imagination and reality in CG animation. Most CG animated movies are not created for the purpose of making things look completely realistic, they want to create the feeling of reality. Russell from Pixar’s UP is a very good example of getting away from reality to create a more relatable character. On the left you can see that Russell’s basic shape is a oval. He has very rounded features. The creators were going for a open and pleasing look. There is almost no neck on Russell, the length of Russell’s legs are completely unrealistic. But again, that is not what they were going for. The filmmakers tried to represent who Russell was on the inside through his outward appearance. Unlike Russell’s friend Carl, Russell is a much more open person who is curious (as you could see based on his shape and all the different things he takes with him) and interested in adventure (based on his expression and the kinds of things he has with him).

With CG animation every detail can be used to enhance the story. The filmmakers need to know the principles of both 2D animation and live action. It takes a animator working hundreds of hours moving thousands of controls to create just a few seconds of life. Anything is possible when it comes to how to use the camera, the director needs to have a thorough understanding on camera placement and what framing and movement creates the best effect. You are allowed to exaggerate shapes like you can do in 2D animation and you are allowed to work with sophisticated cinematography like only live action used to be able to do. The CG medium calls for constant advancement in technology, more things are becoming possible every day.

My ambition for CG animation is to create stories that push the medium forward. But, even more important then that, I want to make films that touch on core human values. Even though Toy Story 3 highlights the extent of how much CG animation has grown from the first two Toy Story’s, it is the story that will make a movie timeless. Technology will always be advancing but we all have our own individual stories to tell. The original Toy Story is still very entertaining to watch 15 years after it was created because the characters and story hit on core values that have stayed with human nature for hundreds of years, such as the value of friendship.

I look forward working with the possibilities CG animation brings us. Buzz Lightyear, from Pixar’s Toy Story franchise, has a interesting saying that I think applies very well to the medium of CG animation. With CG animation we can go “To Infinity and beyond”.

(With CG animation the key is still about the feelings the audience has for the characters and story. In the beginning of this clip Doug Sweetland expresses this point excellently)

2D animation is a very magical medium of film. As I said in my last post, there is nothing more magical to me then seeing simple drawings come to life. Another thing that 2D animation can do is show the hand of the artist through the actual drawings on screen. This drawing to the side was done by a masterful animator called Glen Keane. He has a very interesting style to his animation, different from any other artist.

One of the beauties of 2D animation is that there are so many different drawing styles. Each animator has his or her own way of going about a scene. During the rough animation you can definitely see a huge difference in some animators styles. In this Glen Keane drawing you see very dark lines, Glen is known for physically digging into his paper with the pencil trying to feel the emotion of the character he is drawing. However if you look below you can see a drawing by another masterful animator Ollie Johnson. He had a much lighter touch. Johnston was said to have barley kissed the page with his pencil, slowly trying to figure out the right look and movement for his characters.

Ollie Johnson Example

In 2D animation you are constantly trying to clean up drawings so you can create a film that looks singular, as though one artist had created it. This is where Clean Up Artists come in. A Clean Up Artist is someone who goes over the animators original drawings and creates a fluid drawings that can match the other animation done for the character. A character like the Beast in Beauty and the Beast would have many different animators working so they could have the Beast’s performance done in reasonable time . It can take weeks for an animator to do only a few seconds worth of motion, thus each character calls for multiple animators.

You can not be a good 2D animator without studying the principles of movement. A animator needs to know how to draw well and have a feel for acting. Some animators plan out every detail of their shot before they go about animating. If you look at an animator like Milt Kahl (some say he is the greatest animator ever to live) you will see a pain staking amount of time that goes into planning out each shot. Milt Kahl tried looking at a scene from every angle. He would thumbnail different ideas until he found something that would squeeze out the most entertainment possible. Milt knew exactly what he was going to animate before he even put pencil to paper. However, if you look at a animator like Glen Keane, he will be the first to tell you that he does not know what exactly the result of his animation will be. This is not to say he doesn’t put in the preparation, there is a lot of study Glen does into his character and how his character should move. However, Glen likes to animate based on feeling, he tries to get into his character’s skin and feel the movement of the character flow from pencil to paper. All the way through Glen’s animation process he is digging into his character’s head wondering what the next move should be and whether or not he could express that move through his drawing.

With 2D animation you need to simplify everything. A character is simplified to its basic roots. This often makes the artists put a lot of thought into who the character is and what shapes express the character the best. The audience eye is allowed to pay attention to the action instead of getting distracted by unnecessary details.

This field of animation also lets us look at a movie like a painting. It literally takes hundreds of paintings to create all the background for a story of a film. When 2D animation is at its best everything is painted to highlight the characters. The artists have the ability to dramatically change the color scheme in order to push an emotion. There are times where we only are allowed an impression of a location, like the Forest in Bambi for example. If you go back and study the backgrounds in Bambi, you will find that the paintings for the foreground and background are only impressions of what a real forest looks like. However, the feeling the forest in Bambi creates can be more real then a actual forest.

Some of the feelings I have gotten from 2D animation films like Pinocchio, Lady and the Tramp, and Bambi have never been matched in any other film medium. In 2D animation I am allowed to see the hand of the artist, the only devices the artists need to make the medium work is a pencil and paper. It is a personal field of study and you are allowed to see the sweat and blood the artist put into making the drawings come to life. The actual power of 2D animation is that you start with a blank piece of paper and are able to create anything you can imagine.

So there are three different mediums of film making that I have done a lot of research on. I have ambitions to make movies in each one of theses mediums. 2D animation, CG animation, and live action all have their own strengths. Contrary to many people’s belief, animation is not just for little kids. It can be and often is as much for adults as live action is. In this post I want to give a basic outline of the differences and strengths I see in each medium.

Above are some photos of the legend animator Frank Thomas. You can clearly see the resemblance of the real Frank in the cartoon drawing and the computer rendering. However, neither the computer generated picture or the cartoon drawing are supposed to look exactly like Frank. The beauty of both CG and 2D animation is that they are less interested in the reality of what something looks like but instead strive for creating the feeling of an object or person. In both the CG picture and 2D picture the artist have exaggerated Franks face. It stays reconcilable but we are given a stronger impression of the person’s character.

If you study the face of the real Frank Thomas you will see that the animated pictures have the head 1 1/2 times the size of the normal head. Also, the nose and chin have been sized up. Frank’s facial features are more rounded, the artists are able to create a impression of Frank’s real face out of simple shapes that are easy to read. In both mediums of animation you are allowed more freedom with expressing who your character is on the inside, physically.

Carl Fredricksen from Pixar’s UP is a great example of how abstract animation can make something physically look. Carl is a very closed minded grumpy old man, thus everything on the outside expresses who he is on the inside. Look at Carl’s head, it takes up more then 1/4th of his body. His body is extremely square, you can even see that the model artist has made Carl’s fingers square, no doubt representing who he is on the inside. If you look close, you can see that Carl is wearing some extra thick clothes. The coat Carl has on is about 3 times thicker then normal.

We as an audience do not question the realness of Carl. Even though his body and clothes are very much exaggerated, we are allowed to get to know Carl and think of him as a real person full of emotion and feeling.

Another huge difference between live action and animation is the time it takes to do just one shot of film. With live action you just need to take a camera and record real life footage. With animation you have an animator for each character. Animators spend weeks of hard work just doing a few seconds worth of animation. This is actually one of my favorite things about animation because every single movement is taken into consideration, every single frame is carefully planned out by the animator.

With CG animation you are given a model to use. This model is a empty shell until the animator breathes life into it. In a model like Carl Fredricksen there are literally thousands of different body parts that you can move. For example there might be well over a hundred different switches that control Carl’s face alone. Each switch moves a different part of the face and allows the animator to put more detail into the acting.

With 2D animation you are given a blank page. The animator most likely has model sheets in front him or her, giving pointers on how to go about drawing the character in the right dimensions. However, each scene is different and the 2D animator needs to start with a blank page. 2D animation takes the most broad talent of the three mediums. The 2D animator needs to have a firm understanding of movement. He needs to be a good draftsmen so he could draw the dimensions of the character correctly. And, he needs to know how to act. Even though it seems 2D animation is the hardest medium to work in, I have found nothing more magical then seeing a bunch of drawings turn into a living breathing character.

I appreciate some of the wonderful aspects of live action. With live action you can have everything. The actor does not need to start with a blank page and he can not possibly think of every frame of movement he makes. There is a power in just going with something and not thinking about every little action you are going to make. It give you the ability to have on the spot inspiration and improvise. Improvisation is sometimes the most powerful aspect of film. There is nothing more exciting to some actors then to be thrown a curve ball and need to deal with a comment or action they had not prepared for. With live action characters are allowed to bounce off of each other more easily. You are allowed to see a scene be expressed in many different ways and pick and choose what fits best for the over all film.

In both types of animation you do not have more then one take. You do not have the ability to act something out a million different ways and choose what’s best. The best type of animators are able to thumbnail different ways on how to go about animating a scene, however they do not know exactly what is going to happen until they are done animating the scene. Because of this the animator and director need to already have a good idea on what they want from the characters and story in pre-production, before any animating actually takes place. Pre-production is the most important aspect in animation, a bunch of artist grow through hundreds of drafts of the story on storyboards so they can figure out exactly what they want to happen in each scene. This is often the reason why animated films take much longer to create then live action.

In the next few posts I will highlight each medium and go into more depths on what their individual strengths are. I think this is useful information and gives you a good idea of the basics of each medium. I am sorry if I am not as organized in this post, I stated at the very beginning of this A Dreamer Walking blog that I will be talking about things from off the top of my head. If something I have said does not make sense please feel free to comment. I will try to have the follow up blogs come sooner rather then later.

The Princess and the Frog is a wonderful movie for the return of Disney Hand Drawn animation. I have seen it several times now and it just seems to get better each time I watch it. The reason why this film is so wonderful to keep going back to is because of the depth you see in every aspect of the animation process.

In 2006 when John Lasseter (co-founder of Pixar) was put in charge of Disney animation, one of the first things he wanted to do was to bring back hand drawn animation. This was a tall order since hand drawn animation had been discontinued from the studio about four years before. In order to accomplish it’s rebirth the first thing John did was bring back two old Disney directors, John Musker and Ron Clemens. The two are know for codirecting The Little Mermaid and Aladdin. In all these films I saw a true effort on putting story first and a magnificent ability in getting the whole crew to come together in order to make the best film possible.

I think Ron and John put their best foot forward on this film, and were able to create something original and magical. Both Ron and John said the Princess and the Frog crew was the most talented crew they ever worked with.

In this movie you see a young woman, Tiana, work extremely hard in order to reach her dream of owning a restaurant one day. The film is located in New Orleans in the late 1910’s. Because Tiana is an African American, she is forced to jump through even more hoops then an average white citizen would in order to have her dream come true. Tiana, is unique for a Disney Princess movie. She is not yet a princess and has no inclination of finding a prince to live happily ever after with at the beginning of the movie.

This movie goes further with its unique qualities by having the Prince be a flat out jerk at the beginning of the film. Prince Naveen is a moneyless (Family cut his funding off) spoiled bachelor that comes to New Orleans in order to marry into a rich family.

The movie is about the character development of Tiana and Naveen. In the film you begin out with these characters hating each other and end up with a genuine love story, where two people work through their faults to find love.

The way Disney pulled this story off was simply wonderful. Every aspect of the movie seemed to be working together. You had a Music legend Randy Newman (composer of Toy Story 1 & 2, A Bugs Life, Monsters Inc., and Cars) come up with some magnificent songs for this movie. Randy grew up in New Orleans and really seemed to go back to his roots in creating and composing the music for this movie. He had Jazz, Gospel, and Blues, all highlight the story in wonderful ways and all are worth listening to away from the movie.

What was truly wonderful was the location the story took place. Ron and John said they studied Disney classics, such as Bambi and Lady and the Tramp, as inspiration for this movie. New Orleans was Character in and of itself, each location was made to highlight the animation and further the mood of the story. The City and the bayou were wonderful pieces of art in their own right, but never seemed to distract from the characters.

The character animation was some of the best I have ever seen. I am a big fan of Eric Goldberg and he did a marvelous job as lead animator for Lewis the Alligator. We simply see an entertaining character with a lot of life in the alligator who lives in the bayou, Lewis. Some of the expressions for Lewis are quite extreme, but we never lose track of who the character is. The extremes simply seemed to be expressing him in a better way.

One character I will always cherish is Raymond the Firefly. Mike Surrey was Ray’s lead animator and he and his team did a wonderful job bringing this character to life. Some of the movements that I saw from Ray was like candy to the eyes. In Ray you found a lot of good humor, but more importantly you found heart.

We saw wonderful gags in the animation and the action was pulled off extremely well, but what made this movie great for me, was the animators ability to take us into the character’s head. The drawings became real. I did not just see a bunch of lines moving, I saw real people trying to make hard realistic decisions and real friends having sincere emotions for each other.

John Musker said that he believes there is magic in the Disney Studios still. I saw evidence of that magic in The Princess and the Frog. They truly made this movie to be enjoyed for generations. It is a simple story told in a wonderful way.